While the Red Sox play their only meaningless game of the 2013 season - although a win will give them the best record in MLB - all eyes will be on three other games which will begin to determine who Boston will play on Friday at Fenway Park in ALDS 1.

Boston will finish the 2013 regular season with the best record in the American League. The Red Sox were awarded home field advantage for the entire postseason when the A's lost to Seattle this afternoon.

Daniel Nava went 4-for-4. ... Dustin Pedroia had three hits for the second straight night. ... David Ross drove in two runs. ... Lester (5-9-4-2-4) threw 97 pitches in a tuneup before his ALDS start.

The Red Sox have clinched home field advantage for the ALDS. Game 1 - against (most likely) the winner of the Wild Card game - will be Friday at Fenway Park. Another win (or an Oakland loss) will give the Red Sox HFA for the entire postseason.

September 27, 2013

Boston jumped out to a big lead, with Daniel Nava's three-run homer being the big blow in the first inning.

David Ortiz hit his 30th home run of the season, a three-run bomb in the eighth. ... Clay Buchholz: 7-7-3-0-4, 113. ... Dustin Pedroia and Jonny Gomes each had three hits. ... Gomes also scored three runs.

Koji Uehara pitched the ninth and recorded his 100th strikeout of the season. With only nine walks, he could become the first pitcher in baseball history to total 100+ whiffs and walk fewer than 10 batters.

Peter Abraham of the Globe notes that the Red Sox will finish the 2013 season without a losing streak longer than three games. The last Red Sox team to finish the season without a 4+-game losing streak? 1903!

September 26, 2013

The Yankees were officially eliminated from playoff contention Wednesday night, falling 8-3 to the Rays to end any hope for a miracle to close out this injury-plagued season.

The Bombers were actually eliminated during the eighth inning, as the Indians polished off a win over the White Sox, ending whatever remaining hopes the Yankees had for a late-season miracle. ...

On Sept. 13, the Yankees trailed the Rays by only one game in the wild-card race as they opened a series in Boston against the first-place Red Sox. Three days and three losses later, the Bombers were reeling.

They never recovered, having lost eight of their last 11 games to fall out of the race.

"The series in Boston this month is the one that jumps out at everyone as the one that changed everything," [Vernon] Wells said. "We were playing with as much momentum as you could have and they still dominated us. It showed what that team is capable of doing. That was a pretty good right hook to the jaw."

The Yankees' run of dreadful luck, in fact, stretches back probably to the early hours of Oct. 13, when Derek Jeter took a step to his left to field a double-play grounder and wound up with a metal plate and four screws in his ankle.

From there, it was all downhill until Wednesday night, when the Yankees lost 8-3 to the Tampa Bay Rays to finally pull the plug on their improbable dream, although the dream had died an inning earlier, when the Cleveland Indians, powered by former Yankee Nick Swisher, completed a victory over the Chicago White Sox that secured for them the second AL wild card spot the Yankees have been hoping to somehow sneak into. ...

This was the perfect ending for the imperfect team. The charade officially is over.

The $62 million Rays blew the doors off the Yankees on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, 8-3, thanks to two home runs by Evan Longoria.

The Yankees officially were eliminated from postseason play during the eighth inning, when the Indians finished off the White Sox, 7-2. At that moment the 37,260 fans were on their feet cheering as the Yankees had the bases loaded, hoping for a miracle comeback, but the season already was kaput. ...

There will be no October baseball for the Yankees for only the second time in 19 seasons. This year may be more like 1965 than 2008. This could be a long drought.

Robinson Cano says he hadn't made any decisions about his future yet. But the Yankee second baseman admits that he's thought about the possibility that Thursday's home finale could be his last game in pinstripes at the Stadium.

September 22, 2013

Once this season of overachieving retreads and sadly gassed and broken down former superstars mercifully comes to a close, the Yankees go into an uncertain winter with more holes than almost any other team in baseball. They need a third baseman, a shortstop, a catcher, at least one outfielder (probably two now that Ichiro Suzuki looks like he's finally spent) and at least three starting pitchers. And that doesn't include second base, where Robinson Cano has to be re-signed (but at what cost?), first base, where they don't know what to expect from steadily declining Mark Teixeira, who will be 34 and coming off major wrist surgery, and a whole new set-up relief corps for Rivera's closer successor, David Robertson. The worst part of all this is that there is almost nothing coming in GM Brian Cashman's player development department to fill any of these needs. ...

With nothing coming in the farm system, at least in terms of third basemen, outfielders, first basemen, or frontline starting pitchers, the Yankees will have no choice but to go into the free-agent market this winter in hopes of putting together a respectable team for next year. But the free-agent market — where you're almost always overpaying for past performances with another team — is only the way to go when you're looking to fill a missing piece here and there, much as the Red Sox did last winter in adding grinder types, Shane Victorino, Jonny Gomes and Mike Napoli, along with closer Koji Uehara. Whereas the Red Sox had a solid nucleus in Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and Jarrod Saltalamacchia, in addition to a fertile farm system, the Yankees are looking to construct a whole new team, from top to bottom.

The Sox tried to find players with excellent clubhouse reputations and passion for the game to complement skills that suggested a fit for what they wanted to do. They wanted to find personalities who wouldn't shy from the fact that the team was attempting to fix a very negative environment and turn it into one where players could flourish again. They wanted players who ... would embrace the scrutiny of Boston rather than shrink under its glare.

The sense started to emerge in spring training that they might have just such a group. Over time, with a host of late-innings heroics and victories, the team's self-belief became further solidified. An unseen fabric began to weave throughout the clubhouse -- the obsessive attention to detail behind the scenes among players, the joy in hard work, the concern for the team's performance rather than dwelling on individual roles and accomplishments.

Koji Uehara has a chance to become the first major league pitcher in history with 100+ strikeouts and fewer than 10 walks in a full season. Right now, he has nine walks (two of which were intentional) and 98 strikeouts.

September 20, 2013

The brand-new gray-and-red shirts passed out on the field after the final out said it all: We Own The East.

The Red Sox clinched the AL East title for the first time since 2007.

Lester (7-5-1-2-8, 123) earned his 100th career victory.

Mike Carp drove in three runs, including two in the seventh to salt the game away. ... Dustin Pedroia went 3-for-5; Daniel Nava, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Jackie Bradley each had two hits. .. Koji Uehara got the five-out save, striking out Brett Lawrie to end the game.

Shane Victorino (jammed right thumb) was scratched from the original lineup.

A Red Sox win or a Rays loss = AL East Champs! (Tampa Bay hosts the Orioles this weekend.)

Boston (93-61) leads Oakland (90-63) and Detroit (89-64) in the race for the league's best record - and home field advantage throughout the postseason. The team with the AL's best record will play the Wild Card winner in the ALDS, which begins Friday, October 4.

In 11 starts since the All-Star break, Lester has a 2.38 ERA.

Manager John Farrell flip-flopped Clay Buchholz and Felix Doubront in the rotation, with Buchholz pitching tomorrow and Doubront going on Sunday.

September 19, 2013

Lackey (9-2-1-2-8, 113) threw 6.1 innings of no-hit ball before Adam Jones hit a bomb over the Monster seats and out of Fenway.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia began the bottom of the second with a double to right. With one out, Stephen Drew hit a home run that just cleared the Wall. Jackie Bradley followed with a double to left and came around to score on Dustin Pedroia's single.

Drew also tripled. ... Bradley and Pedroia also had two hits. ... The Rays lost to Texas, so Boston's magic number to clinch the AL East - for the first time since 2007 - is 1.

September 18, 2013

Chris Davis's two-run, bases-loaded single in the twelfth postponed the Red Sox's playoff-spot celebration. Boston's magic number for making the postseason is one and its magic number for clinching the AL East remains at three.

Franklin Morales allowed one-out singles to J.J. Hardy and Brian Roberts in the twelfth. A wild pitch moved the runners to second and third, and pinch-hitter Steve Pearce was walked intentionally. Manny Machado fouled out to first before Davis delivered his big hit.

The Red Sox put the leadoff man on base in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth innings, but moved only one of them as far as second base. (Boston also failed to score back in the third inning after loading the bases with none out. Mike Napoli lined to shortstop and Jonny Gomes tapped into a 1-2-3 double play, one of four DPs turned by the Orioles.)

The night began with David Ortiz belting a long two-run home run to right field. Jake Peavy (7-6-3-1-8, 113) struck out four of the first five batters, and did not allow a hit through the first four innings.

However, Baltimore struck for three runs and six hits over the next two frames. Matt Wieters and Roberts hit run-scoring doubles in the fifth and Wieters added another RBI-double in the sixth.

Napoli tied the score with a home run to dead center to begin the home half of the sixth.

Will Middlebrooks had three singles and an intentional walk. Shane Victorino also had three hits.

Uehara's splitter is not about changing speeds so much as destroying the batter's sense of place in the world. ...

We are now 21 batters in, and we've seen one two-ball count ...

Better: Uehara has gone to 3-0 counts three times this year. Three times! You're excited by this fun fact but the fun fact has not begun; I am merely establishing setting and character. The fun fact starts now: Of those three 3-0 counts, two were intentional walks. Uehara struck out the third batter. ...

This completes the hidden perfect game, and over the course of 27 batters he has thrown 104 pitches, just 19 of them balls, 28 of them swinging strikes. The fastest pitch he threw was 91 mph. ...

Total: 143 pitches, 26 balls. Five batters who reached so much as a two-ball count. Nineteen, more than half, never saw even one ball, and only two of those 19 put the ball in play on the first pitch. ...

If I'm reading the numbers below right, the odds of an average pitcher retiring these 37 batters in a row are like 1 in 2 million.

The pre-game program was built around one of Rivera's greatest failures, a pitch-by-pitch accounting of the Red Sox rallying in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. ...

For these 2013 Yankees, though, what they needed to see was not Rivera's dignity, but rather the subtle context of possibility.

Understand those 2004 Red Sox were as close to a baseball grave as a team could be. It is one thing to be down 3-0 in a best-of-seven, a deficit from which – at that point – no club ever had rebounded. It is another to be coming off a 19-8 humiliation in Game 3. ... Still another to be three outs from continuing the greatest self-fulfilling prophecy in sports – the doom and gloom that came with The Curse.

And there on the mound to get those three outs was Rivera. The greatest closer ever. Greater in the playoffs.

Boston's probability of winning that game, much less that series, much less eight straight games to take both the ALCS and their first World Series in 86 years, was microscopic, tinier than tiny, certainly smaller than 6.5 percent, which is how Coolstandings.com projected the Yanks' chances of making the playoffs on Monday morning following the lost weekend at Fenway.

There is an opportunity for the Yankees here. But is their self-belief intact? Because it starts there. These Yankees have an awful lot of work to do over the final 12 games simply to reach a one-game wild-card play-in, loser go home and winner almost certainly face the Red Sox – which for the Yankees feels like go home soon after. ...

In an attempt to honor Rivera or themselves, the Red Sox showed the Yankees a film that should be a reminder to keep hope alive.

If the Yankees find a way to capture one of the two wild-card berths during the next two weeks, then win the one-game playoff, their reward likely will be a first-round matchup with the Red Sox. ...

The Red Sox outscored the Yankees 22-7 during the series, finishing the year with 13 wins in 19 meetings, their highest total since beating the Yankees 14 times in 1973. It's also the most wins by any team in a single season against the Yankees since 1976.

The wild-card leaders refuse to put the Yankees out of their misery, but it's hardly a race at the moment. More like a crawl, as Joe Girardi's ballclub limps out of town here hoping that being outclassed by the Red Sox this weekend doesn't mean they've simply hit the skids.

[T]he very sight of the Red Sox is enough to make [the Yankees] run for cover at the moment, as they have lost five out of six games to their famed rivals over the last nine days. Furthermore, the Yankees can't get through a day without another player getting hurt.

September 11, 2013

Pinch-hitter Mike Carp saw one pitch with the bases loaded in the tenth. He pounded it over the center field fence for a grand slam. It was the first pinch-hit, extra-inning grand slam in Red Sox history. The win gave Boston a 9.5-game lead in the East.

David Ortiz: To come in and do what he did, you only see that in the movies.

Rays reliever Joel Peralta began the tenth inning by walking Dustin Pedroia. Shane Victorino bunted FY to second. Peralta then intentionally walked David Ortiz. Roberto Hernandez came in from the bullpen and he walked Mike Napoli on four pitches. Carp batted for Jonny Gomes and donged Hernandez's first offering to dead center field. (The last Sock to hit a pinch-hit slam? Kevin Millar, June 7, 2003.)

Dempster has a 6.39 ERA over his last nine starts. Thanks to the Red Sox's big bats - which lead the AL in runs, doubles, walks, and slugging, and are 2nd in batting, on-base, and total bases - the team is 8-1 in those games.

Koji Uehara has retired the last 31 batters he's faced since August 17. That streak ties Hideo Nomo for the Red Sox record, set in 2001. Uehara's scoreless streak of 28.1 innings is the longest by a Red Sox reliever since Dick Radatz went 33 innings in 1963. Uehara has not allowed an earned run over his past 31.2 innings, dating back to June 30.

Derek Lowe made his broadcasting debut with NESN last night. He will be in the booth for the next two games. Click here for a little bit of video from his phenomenal start in 2004 ALCS 7.

Boston begins the season in Baltimore on Monday, March 31. The home opener is Friday, April 4 against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Red Sox play the Yankees seven times in April, visiting the Bronx on April 10-13 and hosting the MFY on April 22-24.

The season ends at Fenway Park with three-game series against the Rays and Yankees.

September 10, 2013

Despite not having pitched against major league hitters since June 8, Clay Buchholz (5-3-0-1-6, 74) picked up right where he left off, throwing five shutout innings. He allowed three hits and one walk, and struck out six, lowering his ERA to 1.61. Boston increased its AL East lead to 8.5 games.

David Price (8-3-2-0-9, 127) was the hard-luck loser. He set down the first 12 Boston batters he faced, but gave up a double to Mike Napoli to start the fifth. Napoli hit the ball deep to center and Desmond Jennings appeared to have a play on it, but Jennings looked away at the last moment and the ball missed his glove and hit off the padded wall. Jonny Gomes followed with a ground-ball single to left-center and Jennings' throw to the plate was way off the mark, allowing Gomes to take second. Daniel Nava bunted Gomes to third and Jarrod Saltalamacchia's sacrifice fly to center brought him home.

Buchholz allowed two singles in the second inning, one with one out and another with two down, then retired Jose Molina to end the minor threat. David DeJesus singled with one out in the third and was thrown out stealing. Matt Joyce walked with one down in the fourth and was gunned down as part of a double play with James Loney gawking at strike three.

Craig Breslow pitched two innings after Buchholz departed. He walked two Rays, but neither runner got past first base. Junichi Tazawa surrendered a two-out double to Yunel Escobar in the eighth and gave way to Koji Uehara. The unhittable Uehara got Wil Myers to end the eighth, then set down the Rays' 2-3-4 hitters in the ninth for the save.

Uehara has retired the last 31 batters he has faced. Since July 9, he has pitched 28.1 scoreless innings, walking one and striking out 38! In those two months, opposing batters are hitting [sic] .071/.081 /.094.

Buchholz (1.71 ERA) returns - on 94 days rest - to the starting rotation to kick off a three-game series against the second-place Rays. ... In noting the last three weeks of the regular season, the Globe's Peter Abraham calls Tampa Bay's upcoming schedule "brutal".

When it comes to chemistry and camaraderie, Pedro Martinez sees a lot of similarities between this year's team and the 2004 Red Sox.

Will Middlebrooks (13-for-28, four HRs, nine RBIs, eight runs scored) and Mike Napoli (10-for-21, four doubles, four HRs, nine RBIs, 1.143 slugging) were named AL Co-Players of the Week.

As you probably know, Jacoby Ellsbury has a compression fracture in the navicular bone of his right foot. John Farrell believes Ellsbury will return before the end of the regular season.

Koji Uehara has retired the last 27 batters he has faced, dating back to August 17, the first Red Sox reliever to do so since 1980. Uehara has also gone 27 innings without allowing a run.

John Tomase of the Herald and WEEI's Alex Speier say it's not too early to start thinking about the Red Sox's playoff roster.

September 9, 2013

I made the announcement on March 1 that I was writing a book celebrating the glorious events of October 2004. That book is now complete. I emailed the manuscript to my editor at Triumph Books at 2:25 this afternoon.

Here is a Wordle diagram of the ALCS portion of the book:

I look forward to once again watching the Red Sox (99.9% probability of making the playoffs, for the first time since 2009) in the evening. ... Good timing with the FKR series starting tomorrow night.

Will Middlebrooks' solo home run off Mariano Rivera tied the game in the top of the ninth, but Ichiro Suzuki scored on Brandon Workman's wild pitch with two outs in the bottom half to prevent Boston from sweeping the four-game series.

David Ortiz doubled twice and scored the Red Sox' other two runs. ... Middlebrooks, Jonny Gomes and Mike Carp also had two hits.

The Red Sox are off on Monday and begin a three-game series in Tampa Bay on Tuesday. Clay Buchholz may return to the rotation for the first game; he last pitched on June 8.

They have somehow given New York a baseball season with meaningful games in September, the Yankees have, but it is an illusionary one and, judging by all those empty seats at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox, their fans seem to agree. ...

You get the feeling Yankee fans understand this. Maybe it's because the common fans have been priced out of the new Stadium, leaving the moated fortress to the privileged, dispassionate corporate millionaires and their equally privileged guests. ... How else to explain the 10,000 empty seats Thursday night in what was the most important game of the year — against the Red Sox — and the general apathy in the stands until the Yankees’ six-run rally in the seventh (when a lot of those fans had already left)?

[T]hey're hemorrhaging blood after being assaulted by the Red Sox for an astounding total of 34 runs the last three days at the Stadium, making you wonder how they'll survive Game 4 of this Demolition Derby, never mind the next seven days in Baltimore and Boston.

Their bullpen is suddenly decimated by injuries, to the point where the Yankee brass may be only another sore arm away from holding open tryouts for pitchers.

Even another injury departure for Derek Jeter couldn't overshadow a third consecutive pitching meltdown that left the Yankees as 13-9 losers to the rival Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Saturday afternoon, giving them a historic dishonor. As FOX's sideline reporter Ken Rosenthal shared (courtesy of Stats Inc.), never before had an American League team lost three straight home games in which it scored at least eight runs per contest.

In the top of the sixth, Jeter could not muster the leg strength to plant and deliver accurately from the hole, throwing away a Jonny Gomes grounder. Jeter did produce what has become a rare hit in the bottom of the frame, an RBI single, but he ran with such a gimp that he was removed for a pinch-runner.

Derek Jeter seemingly has had as many medical tests as hits this season, and the Yankee captain landed back at the hospital on Saturday.

Jeter, who has been on the disabled list three times in 2013, was sent to New York-Presbyterian to have his surgically repaired left ankle checked out after the hobbling shortstop was removed for a pinch runner in the sixth inning of a 13-9 loss to the Red Sox at the Stadium.

Another game against the Yankees, another win against the Yankees. ... Same old, same old. ... Yet this isn't getting boring.

Boston hit four home runs: Mike Napoli (2), Jonny Gomes, Xander Bogaerts. ... Gomes drove in four runs, X and Napoli drove in three. ... Everyone in the starting lineup had a hit and five different players scored two runs. ... The Red Sox have scored 54 runs in their last four games.

With this win, the Red Sox's lead in the AL East is a season-best eight games. Tampa Bay plays at Seattle tonight.